Samburu lmala knirau, Wamba, Kenya

Noun
Pronunciation: XXX
Gourd lmala with a hollow cup-shaped wooden lid, of varying sizes and shapes. The nkirau belongs to women, children, and elders, but is never used by murran (warriors).

The dried gourd is purchased from the Maasai. The Maasai use this gourd for milking, but the Samburu use it for milk storage and mixing. As gourds are fragile compared with wood, the nkirau is not filled around cows because it could easily be destroyed with a kick. 

The nkirau shares a style of flat-topped carved wooden cup with the lmala lkantir. With the nkirau, the angle at which the cap is expanded to its largest bulbous diameter is less sharp than in the lkantir; in other words, the walls of the cap as it descends from its flat top, while more angled, are more parallel than those of the lkantir, whose shape to my eye is one of remarkable elegance. The lid is often decorated with colorful stitching close to the rim.

Turkana form of nkirau.
A Turkana form of nkirau. Samburu people will use this form of container, but they do not make it — and they would never drink Turkana-processed milk from it.

Few examples of nkirau remain, as it has been so long since enough cows existed to produce enough milk to fill one. With the apparent definitive collapse of Samburu herds as I write this in the summer of 2022, the shape likely will never be used again. The same is true of the lmala nyatio, which has the circumference of the arms of a big man; my Samburu friends estimate it has not been used since the drought of 1986. 

The nkirau is very similar to the lmala naililiori except it has only a single side band running up the base to the waist belt. 

Description

Container capacity: XXX

Cylindrical gourd container with urn-shaped wooden lid. The vessel’s sides swell outward below its neck to bulbous shoulders, then taper inward to a swollen rounded base. The container’s exterior is stained with ochre and has decorative leather stitching encircling its top. Leather carrying straps of varying widths encircle its sides at the waist and support the base. The detachable carved wooden lid is roughly urn-shaped, with sides that slope to a rounded waist, then taper sharply to fit over the gourd’s neck. The lid is usually painted black using animal blood mixed with ash, but is otherwise undecorated. 

Return to Types of Milk Containers.

This is the draft manuscript of the Samburu Milk Project, © 2024 William Rubel. 

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Published by William Rubel

I am an author who writes about traditional food and foodways. My book, The Magic of Fire (2002) is about hearth cooking. I have written an introductory history of bread, Bread, a global history (2011) and am currently writing a history of bread for the University of California Press. Other areas of interest include wild mushrooms, and specifically the treatment of Amanita muscaria in the historic record. I also write about Early Modern British Gardens, and for a more general audience, I write for Mother Earth News on bread, gardening, and more. I have an ongoing research project into the smoke-cured fermented milk of the Kenyan Samburu tribe. I am a co-director of the Samburu Lowlands Research Station, Lengusaka. I am the founding editor (1972) of Stone Soup, the magazine of writing and art by young people.

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